Surveillance & Society 3(1): 21-44 http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/articles3(1).fingerprints.pdf © 2005 Surveillance & Society and the author(s). All rights reserved. ISSN: 1477-7487 Photographing Fingerprints: Data Collection and State Surveillance Jonathan Finn1 Abstract This paper examines fingerprint identification as a mode of state surveillance. Drawing on but critiquing the work of Simon Cole, it argues that the technique yielded a greater, more pervasive form of state surveillance by giving rise to new practices of data collection. This paper also highlights the photograph’s role in fingerprint identification to argue for an essential transformation in law enforcement and surveillance practices announced by the intersection of fingerprinting and photography at the turn of the twentieth century. In contrast to traditional forms of visual surveillance, the collaboration of fingerprint identification and photography extended the surveillance gaze of the state in a manner often attributed to the rise of CCTV, enabling the state to bring all bodies – criminal and non-criminal alike – under surveillance. However, the unique capabilities afforded to the state through the intersection of fingerprint identification and photography remained largely theoretical until the advent of digital technologies in the 1960s and 1970s. At the start of the twenty-first century, advanced visual technologies and new media technologies reflect a restructuring of law enforcement and surveillance practices based on the aggregate collection of identification data. This paper argues that the continued photographing of fingerprints in contemporary law enforcement and state initiatives constitute heightened state surveillance and, as such, demands serious critical attention. Introduction Speaking at the 1926 International Association of Chiefs of Police convention, J. Edgar Hoover, then the newly appointed director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, announced that the Identification Division had passed the million mark in its collection of fingerprint records (Dilworth 1977: 166). During the fiscal year 2001 the same agency received 15.4 million fingerprint submissions (Carey 2001). Most recently, and under the guise of a “war on terrorism” The United States Department of Homeland Security announced the United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology Program (US-VISIT), capturing digital images of the fingerprints and faces from the 35,000,000 non-citizens entering or leaving the country annually. 1 Department of Communication Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. mailto:[email protected]: Photographing Fingerprints Surveillance & Society 3(1) 22 Hoover’s comment in 1926 and the implementation of US-VISIT three-quarters of a century later attest to a continued effort by police in the United States to collect and archive personal identification data and to the central importance of fingerprinting in that effort. The tremendous economy of the fingerprint has assured the technique’s prominence in law enforcement practices, which are dependant on the rapid collection, analysis and exchange of identification data. Yet despite its dominant position in law enforcement and identification practices, fingerprinting has received relatively little critical attention, Simon Cole’s (1998a; 1998b; 2001) work being the notable exception. This lack of attention is of particular concern as digital technologies now enable law enforcement agencies to amass aggregates of identification data to an extent far beyond what was possible with traditional ink-based fingerprint systems. This paper examines fingerprint identification as a mode of state surveillance. Simon Cole has shown how the technique’s adoption into Western police practices worked in concert with broadening criminal laws to bring more criminal bodies under state surveillance. By casting a wider net, Cole stresses, more criminals were caught and more were brought under the watchful eye of the state through the compilation of greater numbers of criminal records. I agree that fingerprinting greatly assisted in this effort; however, I argue that the technique yielded a greater, more pervasive form of state surveillance by giving rise to new practices of data collection. The collection, exchange and interpretation of fingerprint data operate through the manipulation and mediation of images. Fingerprinting is a highly visual and, I argue, largely a photographic process. This paper highlights the photograph’s role in fingerprint identification to argue for an essential transformation in law enforcement and surveillance practices announced by the intersection of fingerprinting and photography at the turn of the twentieth century. I argue that, in contrast to traditional forms of visual surveillance that are based in direct observation and face-to-face interaction, the collaboration of fingerprint identification and photography extended the surveillance gaze of the state in a manner often attributed to the rise of CCTV (Norris 2003; McCahill 1998). The ability to photograph fingerprints enabled law enforcement agencies to collect, exchange and interpret identification data independent of the physical presence and knowledge of the body and largely free of the spatial and temporal constraints which had informed prior police practices. Prior to the development of fingerprinting, law enforcement agencies used the camera to document known, criminal offenders. The camera’s use by nineteenth century law enforcement agencies as a mechanism in the surveillance and control of growing urban populations has been well documented by scholars working in the history and theory of photography and visual culture (Tagg, 1988; Sekula 1986; Green 1984, 1985a, 1985b, Lalvani 1996; Gunning 1995). However, just as Cole stresses that fingerprinting brought more criminal bodies under state surveillance, work addressing the use of photography in law enforcement tends to emphasize the role of the camera to document criminal bodies. In contrast to this I stress that the collaboration of fingerprint identification and photography at the turn of the twentieth century enabled the state to bring all bodies – criminal and non-criminal alike – under surveillance. The unique capabilities afforded to the state through the intersection of fingerprint identification and photography remained largely